Day Two (and counting) & Libyan Business Spotlight #1

Rain has come back to the Pacific Northwest (oh, wait, this is the Pac NW, it never left us). For in the Pac NW, we have two main types of weather: rain and liquid sunshine. I guess this is the price we pay for being "The Evergreen State", and for being called "WASHington". NEVER, I repeat NEVER, trust a state with "wash" in its name, because quite frankly, nine months out of the year we're going to have rain (or another form of precipitation, but usually rain, in the form of "misting") practically every day. You will get "a wash" if you stand out there long enough and take a bar of soap with you! But please don't do it naked, we have laws against such things! And the other three months of the year (June, July, and August-- if we're lucky; the usual is July and August), we have a lot of liquid sunshine. LOL. Ironically, though, we only get around 50 (125 cm) inches of rainfall in the Longview, WA area (and in the Pac NW) but we complain about it so much that it SEEMS like 150 (375 cm) inches. A lot of native Northwesterners have a love/hate/complain relationship (e.g., "it's complicated") with rain. We love to hate it, we hate to love it, we love to complain about it, but we hate to complain about it too.

Anyways, it's been two days since my letter left Longview, WA, headed for Tripoli, Libya. It'll likely be 7-10 days before it hits the shores of Tripoli (oh why, why, am I thinking of the Marine Corps Battle Hymn? "From the halls of Montezuuuuuma, to the shores of Tripoli"). Next time, I'm going to send a "flat rate" envelope via Priority Mail International, because THOSE can be tracked (they're also about seven and two thirds times the amount-- $13.45/17.02 LYD versus $1.76/2.23 LYD for First Class Mail International). Global Express Guaranteed and Express Mail International aren't available to Libya. DHL, FedEx, and UPS ARE available to Libya, but shipping via those companies is, well, an arm, leg, kidney, lobe of liver, etc.-- EXPENSIVE. In Tripoli, at least, FedEx operates as Al Zajel Express.

SITES REFERENCED:
http://www.usps.com/international/welcome.htm -- the USPS (United States Postal Service)

http://www.xe.com/ucc/full/ (XE.com, a currency converter online)

http://fedex.com/us/international/irc/profiles/irc_ly_profile.html?gtmcc=us (FedEx Libya's page), also, http://www.fedex.com/ly and http://www.azfreight.com/azworld/aw19506.cfm

http://www.ups.com/content/corp/worldwide/africa/libya.html (UPS' website for Libya)

http://wap.dhl.com/wrd/ly.html (DHL's Libya site); also, http://wap.dhl.com/wrd/sarea/ly.html (for DHL dropoff sites in Libya)

http://www.gazelle-express.com/services.htm (Gazelle Couriers' website).



LASTLY, the first Libyan Business Spotlight, on Gazelle Couriers:

I do recommend "Gazelle Couriers" in Tripoli, on Ahmed Sawehli/Swehily (I've seen both spellings, God love the transliteration from Arabic to English!) Street, off Nasr Street for all your domestic and international shipping needs, because they seem to be authorized shipping centers for all three major worldwide shipping companies (DHL, FedEx, UPS). They're a joint Libyan-Maltese business venture, so if you're looking to "buy local" and support local Libyan businesses and businesspeople, they're the ones to go to for all of your shipping needs from Tripoli, Libya, to the rest of the world... they've been in business since 1986, and count among their clients banks, insurance companies, oil companies, and shipping companies (hopefully the expat community too!). With sub offices in five cities (Musratah, Sirt, Benghazi, Tobruk, Sabha) to support their head office in Tripoli, they're available to virtually all of Libya (except for the nomadic tribes in TMON in the desert that probably don't get much mail or want to send it regularly). This company's website is at: http://www.gazelle-express.com/services.htm ; their telephone numbers are: 218-21-444-7677 and 218-21-444-6410 (I'm unsure if the full country and city code (218-21) are required for calls within Libya).

ACRONYM OF THE DAY:
TMON- "the middle of nowhere"

*I am having a hard time finding this business on Google Maps as of 9/17/2010, 20:42h (8:42 pm)*

NOTE: If you're a Libyan (in Libya) business owner, and would like to have your business featured here in this (planned) weekly "blurb on the blog", please, please, drop me a line. Otherwise, I'll be forced to deal only with those companies that I can find any information about, either via my own investigatory endeavors via the WWW, or by directly contacting them after using the Google (aka, "Googling"). Believe me. I'd be happy to do it. It's free advertising for you, and a great deal of fun for me. I get to combine dual loves-- the gift for gab (Blarney!) and advertising (More blarney!)